CHAPTER XI
AN INTIMATE VIEW FOR JANET
"I shall have to begin with apologies again," commenced Betty Lee'sletter to her earliest chum, with whom she still carried on the fitfulcorrespondence. "But one good thing is that you know how it is yourself.And the longer you wait to get at writing the more likely you are to putit off, since there keep coming more things to tell.
"However, I've had a letter in mind for ages and I'm going to tell youEVERYTHING and answer all your questions. So this may string out forPAGES. Be PREPARED. As you see, I'm using Father's typewriter and I'mlearning to use it fairly well now. 5hi$ i$ the way I began @nd 8though*t it w@S greAT Fun. amy LOUcWho i$ allowed to 5ry if She is veryc@refulchad a g@me wi5h me to $EE if we cou#d re@d eaCH Others writing.I hope you get it!
"By the way, don't start in reading this to Sue, if I'm going to tellyou EVERYTHING as of yore, since All that I shall say will not be forpublication. Do you remember how in our notes to each other we printedin capitals the words we desired emphasized? What good times we used tohave! Well, we have good times now, only different, and I wish I couldsee you oftener.
"I'm thinking right now that it's a real consolation to have somebodywho knows you of old, somebody that you grew up with. No matter howwildly I RAVE ON, you will understand, I rather think, and will not betoo critical--supplying a grain of salt here, if I'm extravagant in myremarks, and a bit of imagination there, when I give you a hint! Nowdon't think that any dark secret is to be revealed, but I'm sure thatyou will _instinctively_ know what I am confiding just to you.
"I wrote you after we moved, I'm sure, and told you how much we like thehouse. For fear I omitted something I'll just say that it is a brickcolonial, with a pretty approach and entrance, shrubbery and trees andflower beds and vines that will look wonderful again after winter isover. I've had one party in the big rooms downstairs and Mother has hada few teas and friends in to dinner. She likes to entertain in smallnumbers best, to visit.
"Doris had her party, too, and I thought I'd perish with mirth when Ioverheard Dick tell his best chum, as they clattered down from Dick'sroom one day, that he 'thought he'd sling a stag party pretty soon.' He'slung' it and we all pitched in to make the boys have a good time withespecially good things to eat. But the twins want to entertain together,for the most part and most of their friends are in theirclass--sophomores, now!
"Best of all, Father is pretty sure that he will buy the place, and thenwe _shall_ feel settled. It depends, naturally, on when the necessarySPONDULICS are at hand and Father does not speak of that. But it ispleasant to have a nice home, and though we'll never try to live up thethe MURCHISON MILLIONS, we are glad to have a whole house to ourselves,with plenty of room to spread out and somebody to help Mother. We girlsstill do little things and are supposed to take care of our own mending,etc.; but Mother gives us our time for lessons and other things and I'msometimes in such a rush that I wish I had a maid, like Lucia, to pickup after me! Father does not seem to think that I am PERMANENT here andteases me a little sometimes. But more of that anon. You know how he is!
"Now to give you a bird's eye view of what I am doing. First andforemost, I'm trying to run the G. A. A. The girls usually elect thespring before but it was put off and put off until it was not done atall. So several of us were nominated and I was elected, and although Iwas pleased with the honor my heart almost sank at the JOB! Still, ithasn't been so bad because our class has always been greatly interestedin athletics and I can head almost any committee with a capable seniorgirl and leave it to her to carry things out. We've had membershipcampaigns and pep squads and the usual games and contests. I mustremember to send you copies of the _Roar_, from time to time. Sometimesthe write-up is real cute.
"It would take me a week to write you about all the doings, from homeroom elections and meetings, Girl Reserve programs--under Kathryn aspresident this year--to the exciting football games of the boys' teams.Our school won the championship and the boys are working hard to makethe basketball record as good.
"Our senior hockey team, of which I was the captain, WON! I certainlywas glad of that! I'm not on the basketball team because the folks don'twant me to be, but I'm almost as interested. Both Carolyn Gwynne andKathryn Allen are playing. 'Finny' could not get on this time. GwenPenrose turned out to be a wonderful player and is captain! We ought towin the inter-class contests, which are already posted. We play eachclass, of course--I'll scribble off the schedule and enclose it. Theseniors begin the games, playing the sophomores on February eleventh. Wehave the usual crazy names for our teams.
"But what is most interesting of all to me is the annual mileage swim,or MARATHON, and I hope to have chevrons and points and so on. I've toldyou all about honors before. That is one reason for this letter. I amsupposed to be resting after swimming 'lengths.' Then we seniors wantthe class championship, and so many of us are good swimmers, easyswimmers, that we stand a good chance of getting it. All that is goingon now and the last copy of the _Roar_ calls us the mermaids. Can yourealize, Janet, that it is actually February now, and of our senioryear? When you write, tell me everything about all of them in our oldclass in Buxton High now, and some of them dropped out, I know, and someI don't know at all that have come in since I left.
"To go back a little, we had all the lovely Christmas season as usual,with the customary carolling and gift making and looking after our poor.I'm glad to think that now 'Ramona Rose' and her mother are happy asthey can be before they have Ramon back, all cosy at the Murchison's.The new Mrs. Murchison had been very glad to have Rose, for there was achange of butler and everybody, almost, after the countess went away.
"I have seen a good deal of Lucia Coletti. She is more or less lonesomewithout her mother there, but both parents were here at Christmas timeand now they are in South America. The count is a great traveler, buthas his wife with him this time. Lucia is doing splendid work in herlessons and they are so proud of her!
"To tell the truth, I suppose the things we think about most arelessons, getting them and how to find time to get them! But I don't knowthat they are the _main objects in life_! _Wouldn't_ you find itinteresting to have me quote a page of Virgil, or give you extracts frommy last English theme! After the Christmas parties we buckled down towork again, and we have recently survived the 'mid years.'
"It certainly was hard to keep up my work the first semester, but Iconcentrated on the main things, and then it did help having ChetDorrance and the other boys we know so well busy with their freshmanwork in the university! Well, some of them went away to school,too--other colleges. There wasn't much social life till the holidays--afew parties and meeting each other at games and so on. I am still on thehonor roll. I wouldn't dare drop down from that, or Father would have medrop some other things. Anyhow, there is only one way for me to studyand that is to _get_ the work. We still have Latin and Math and otherclubs, but the meetings for the most part are in the class period, sothat isn't so bad. They are interesting, too. I shudder to think howmany of my different activities will be listed in our year book thatwill be published the end of the year. I'm on that staff, too, but Ihaven't much to do yet. A teacher has it in charge, for it is tooimportant to trust it altogether to our ignorance!
"But oh, Janet, we are growing up! Yes, the report was true aboutMathilde and Jack Huxley. Mathilde wears a big diamond and they arealways together. Mathilde is very snippy to me, a little more so thanever, and I can't imagine why, unless it is because Jack started out bybeing quite attentive to me last year, for just a little while, youknow. I gave you a hint of that affair--which you must not _breathe_ toany one--ever! Mathilde and Jack are both a little older than theaverage of our class and the latest is that they are to be married soonafter they graduate, with a big wedding, and go abroad for their weddingtrip. Jack has only part work with us this year and is doing somethingat the university, too. But he told me himself that he did not want 'anymore school.'
"You ask me
about 'love affairs,' but I gasped when I read what youwrote about Jo's being so attentive. Was it to prepare me? 'Janet andJo,' I said to myself. I haven't seen Jo for so long that I probablywould not know him. If he is going so far away he will probably want apledge from you before he leaves. It looks like a good opportunity forhim. I couldn't tell from what you wrote just how you felt about ityourself. If this keeps on you will have to decide whether you want tobe engaged or not and whether you like Jo enough. As I read your letter,I could remember the row of heads in the family pew in church, towardthe front, and Jo's was the highest up, among the three Clark boys. Hewas 'one of the big boys' to me after we began to go to school.
"And now telling you 'EVERYTHING' doesn't seem to be so much, afterre-reading your letter again and thinking about how little I really haveto tell. I was in what Mother calls an 'expansive' mood when I beganthis letter and as it's been written in 'hitches' it seems to be more orless of a boiled down record of what has happened. And on secondthoughts it seems silly to write down some things, that I shouldprobably blather about if I saw you. You will probably like to hearabout the boys that I wrote of last summer in my long letter from Maine.Chet was pretty nice. I do like him ever so much, Janet, but he knowsthat I'll not stand for anything sentimental, at least yet, and all hedoes is to take as many dates as he has time for and, I imagine, keep aneye on me. I don't really _know_, Janet, that Chet himself thinks of any_permanent arrangement_ between us. I'd be very conceited, I think, tosuppose that any boy is very much in earnest when he hasn't said so--yetChet has been a friend for so long that there may be a little excuse forbeing on guard to ward off anything else. I certainly haven't the leastidea how to handle it, if it needs handling at all--for Chet is goingclear through college somewhere.
"Father says to me, 'Please, daughter, no high school engagement.' Isuppose I agree with him that his ideas are always sensible. Probably I_am_ too young to know how to choose a 'life partner.' Still, he andMother weren't awfully old. They can't say _much_. And if a _certainperson_ should ask me--well, it might be a little hard to refuse! I'm'going on' eighteen, after all. Father says, if I want to go, he willgive me a year in a girls' college somewhere. But that takes a long timeto arrange ahead, so I think it will be the 'home town' university atfirst.
"Oh, yes, I started in to tell you about the boys. No, I can't tell whothat 'certain person' is. Besides, I might change my mind. Ted, the boythat impressed me so when I first came to the city, is still a dear butdoes not figure in my dreams any more at all. He is just as fine a boyas could be, but he likes too many girls and I have to be the one andonly! I think that Chet is less--temperamental, as they say. But nobodycan help loving Ted.
"Larry Waite, about whom I've told you a little at different times, isvery much of a gentleman, adores the water, just as I do and seemed tofind me a congenial spirit this summer. That doesn't mean a thing,however. I had one little note from him after I came home and perhapsI'll have a valentine from him and from Chet on Valentine's day, comingso soon now. He is Marcella's brother, you remember, but isn't home muchbecause he has been East to school. But like me, he will be graduatedthis June and I don't know what he is to do after that. We didn't talkabout it last summer.
"Arthur Penrose is in art school and writes to me once in a while. Chetdidn't like it much when I showed him a letter from Arthur, so I nevershowed him any more! The Penroses live here, you know, so it's perfectlynatural for us girls to see Archie and Arthur once in a while. Gwen wesee every school day and some more!
"I shall have to hurry this up, though I'm not half through. Yet it's a_book_ already! I'll try not to be so long again in getting to a letter.Yes--we have a Valentine Party--well, I'll write you a card at leastafter that is over. I want to mail this tomorrow morning on the way toschool, or give it to Father to mail for me, and Mother says I_positively_ must go to bed now!
"Please tell me if anything has happened in your young life and I willdo better next time."
With the usual affectionate close, Betty finished her closely scribbledsheets and put them in an envelope. It was something to have gotten offso long a letter in the intervals of one afternoon and evening.